Hi

Its been hard racing in Urt in Southern France it has been wet for most of the time.

The first stage was around Urt and was only 84k very fast course I think I touched 45mph in the pack on a fast descent and it was just attack after attack. Every lap we had a climb in it and I am not the best of climbers. Each time we hit the climb the little 50kilo blokes would attack so after about the 3 time up this I slipped backwards off the front group, with one of my team mates we worked for the rest of the race just keeping tempo so we did not loose to much ground. We game in on our timing about 2 min down only to find out the timing chip was not working so they said we were 7min down which we know is wrong and to make it worse we had riders that who were down as beating us that we know were a lap down. We complained to UCI but all we had was French won so don’t worry about it. So we were not happy after day one.

Day two started with a TT nothing special there I finished 4th 25sec down so that was ok. Then it was crit time I was looking forward to this, the sun was out and the day looked good. I had the bike set up with nice light wheels and was ready for anything. Race was going well to start then it went dark and the rain started there was a problem in the group which caused the pack to split. I was having major problem of not being able to stop for the turns I just could not get the brakes to warm up and dry the rims as the roads had turned in to a river. Then it happened I am on the deck as I loose the front wheel going left at a roundabout. I managed to get up and someone gave me a good push off and I then had to chase and chase to get back on I think it took me about 3 laps but I got on to the group I had crashed out of. We were happy in this group and had 2 laps to go we were on the same lap as the leaders which was the main thing and only about 1min down so we all kept it going to the line. When we see the results we can not believe it we had lost 20min in the crit which was not possible as they were only 5 min laps so our DS complained again and all she had was timing chips are not working and the times stand. One poor bloke lost 1hour and we were only racing for 50min and 2 laps. You work it out, but you cannot argue with the UCI what they say is right.

Day 3 another crit and its wet again due to the timing problems I am now 27min down and 9 instead of about 4 min down and 4th. Again the roads are like glass so I decide to play it safe and just sit in and take the corners easy so I was yo-yoing a bit off the back but I finished in the front group in what turned out to be a fast uneventful crit.

What have we learned from this you cannot argue with French UCI if a French man is leading. I am pleased to say that due to the last day an American won my class not French

Now to cap it all off our flight is cancelled due to the ash cloud

Simon